The Cult of Warmism

One of the bigger legends of ancient history involves the great library at Alexandria, or more specifically its burning. Accounts vary, as do purported culprits, but one tale brings a certain insight to today's installment.

Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second Muslim Caliph, was, one account tells us, asked what to do with the books of the Library when Arabs took control of the city around 641 AD. His (purported) response:

If there is in it what complies with the Book of God [Q’uran], then it is already there and is not needed and if what is in these books contradict the Book of God there is no need for it. And you can then proceed in destroying them.

Whether specifically true or not, the philosophy of the argument is one repeated in religions across history: Contradictions with scripture are false, and therefore to be ignored. Or worse. By extension, contradictors of scripture are peddlers of lies, full stop.

I've written before about the parallels between religiosity and a segment of the global warming populace (Climate Change as Religious Dogma). The persistent dominance of a radical climate-based doctrine in the policies of the current administration, even in the face of the global energy market disruption caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and despite the very clear and obvious utility of robust domestic oil and gas production as a strategic response to Putin’s aggression, seems only explainable by a dogmatic, rather than scientific, attitude at the top of the nation's leadership.

Biden has advanced a set of policies and directives intended on driving America toward net-zero carbon emissions within a few decades. There are so many problems with this that I scarcely know where to begin, and I for certain cannot come close to listing them all.

The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) offers "41 Inconvenient Truths on the "New Energy Economy"", a list well worth reading.

The colossal… nay, insurmountable barring some world-changing invention storage problem, that the Greens are ostrich-head-in-sand ignoring, is detailed here and here.

The administration’s farcical claim that it hasn’t hampered domestic production is debunked here, here, here, and here.

Biden's aspiration will cost the nation many trillions of dollars it does not have and necessitate a marked decrease in living standards for all but the wealthiest few percent of Americans.

Moreover, even if it is achievable (it is not), it will not make a piddle of difference in global temperature changes, because most of the world will not follow suit. Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC nations), along with most (if not all) of Africa and most (if not all) of the developing nations of Asia will not follow suit either. Yes, there will be increased use of wind and solar power - where they make economic sense - but as the FEE article shows, the scalability obstacles mean that those sources will remain niche unless a transformative invention takes place (and inventions cannot be predicted).

In short, the massive conversion to wind and solar (oh, but not nuclear, an exclusion that boggles the mind even further) is a massive financial landslide that will produce no positive outcome (except for the well-connected, of course).

Yet, it is now government policy. And, since there's certain to be vast sums of (borrowed or printed) money to be fire-hosed in its pursuit, Corporate America is suddenly greening itself with reckless abandon.

I don't care what your views on anthropogenic global warming itself are. It doesn't matter if you see it as the end of life on Earth, as a hoax perpetrated by globalist Reptilians, or somewhere in between.

Let me reiterate: The veracity or severity of global warming do not matter in this assessment. The wind-and-solar-and-battery remedy is wrong. It is not possible with the technology either at hand or in a predictable pipeline, and even if it were, it'd be a massively expensive undertaking for a minuscule benefit.

That expense isn't an abstraction, either. Already, we see what the wholesale printing of money for the COVID pandemic has done to inflation. Already, we see what the myriad obstacles to domestic oil and gas drilling erected by the administration are doing to fuel prices. Americans' living standards are and will continue to be harmed, and not just trivially, by Biden's quixotic energy pursuits.

I've heard no viable rebuttals to my conclusion that most of the world will not follow America down the WASABI path. All I ever get is either "if we lead, they will follow" or "they will have to, because the world will end otherwise." The former is demonstrably false, the latter is Pollyanna fantasizing based on a luxury viewpoint that most of the world has neither the capacity nor the desire to emulate. The most ardent advocates of WASABI are often the least-affected by all those increased costs and life impositions it'll cost. Rank-and-file Americans may talk "green," but they won't willingly offer green: two thirds of Americans wouldn't even pay $10 extra on their electric bills to combat global warming.

So, why are our leaders cattle-prodding America toward this net-zero WASABI pipe dream? Because Biden and his advisors share Umar's mindset. The cult of warmism rejects contradictory facts and analysis. The conclusion that wind-and-solar-and-batteries is the remedy to what ails us is scriptural, a form of special revelation handed down by high priests who will figuratively burn heretics and apostates at the stake, and condemn all unbelievers as pagans to either be converted or ignored.

What is the right remedy for anthropogenic global warming? I've long advocated for building nuclear power plants by the hundreds (and not just for global warming - they're cleaner and safer than every other form of energy, and the reduction in particulate pollution vs coal plants would save many thousands of lives a year), and for robust research into geo-engineering solutions. Beyond that, humans can actually deal with the potential effects of global warming at far lower cost and with far less disruption than this zero-carbon fantasy will impose. As the linked video notes, fossil fuels are, today and until a world-changing invention occurs, far more moral than WASABI.

Those remedies don't impose pain on the unrepentant masses, though, and it's clear that warmists prefer punitive remedies. Remedies, not solutions. Solving the problem is secondary to garnering obeisance and genuflection, and punishing the heretics is its own reward.

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Yours in liberty,

Peter.